Lucy Oswald: The Girl Who Never Was
by Nehszriah
Summary: Buttons were pressed, the Zygon Wars begun, and as with any war, families are broken and shattered until only the most innocent remain. A stranger calls a number marked for emergencies only and is very surprised when an alien spacecraft lands in the flat. [post-Zygon Invasion/Inversion AU]


A/N: So the other day I got this idea for a s9 AU and knew I simply _had_ to share. Enjoy!

* * *

Lucy Oswald: The Girl Who Never Was

Buttons had been pressed. War was declared. An angry Doctor whisked Clara away in the TARDIS and they went anywhere but her contemporary Earth. They wandered, drifted, flitted around from one place until the other, until a phone call sent them back to the one place he didn't want to be.

"Who are you, how did you get my number, and how did you get the _right_ to phone me?" the Doctor snarled. The middle-aged human cringed slightly in fear; extraterrestrials were a frightening thing.

"I found it and it was labeled 'for emergencies'… and since this is an emergency…"

The Doctor opened his mouth to continue his scolding when the cry of a baby cut through the air. He froze, his eyes going wide. Following the sound of the wails, the three came upon a nursery where a tiny baby laid in her cot.

"Oh my gosh," the Doctor breathed. He picked the child up and rested her against his chest, holding her head in-place as he bounced her. "Whose brilliant tiny human is this?"

"My neighbors', Jen and Rigsy," the caller said. "The ceasefire had been holding steady, so they both went for a walk together, but…"

"No…" Clara gasped. "Do you need us to take her to an auntie? Uncle? Gran and granddad?"

"From what I understand, Rigsy's aunt died a couple years ago in Bristol, and Jen hasn't heard from her family in months. I've got a bad hip, or I'd figure out a more long-term plan myself, but please help Lucy. I don't know if that means keeping her or finding a good home, but not the ones that are popping up now. It's a lot to ask, but…"

"We'll do it," the Doctor said, finality in his voice. "Clara, get things we need for her—I'll be in the TARDIS."

The Time Lord carried his infant guest into the TARDIS, asking the old girl for a proper room. First door in the corridor became a nursery—a proper Gallifreyan one with constellations of his home planet's skies twinkling on the ceiling and a wooden cot with high bars decorated in formal swirls and designs—and that was where Clara found him, brandishing a plastic tote that she placed near the doorway.

"Here we are: birth certificates, photo albums, bits and bobs of her parents' things; she'll be better off than most orphans," she said.

"Lucy won't be an orphan," the Doctor said, placing the baby down in the cot. He gave her a rattle and placed his hand on her head before turning back to Clara. "I'll raise her."

"You? Do you even know the first thing about caring for a baby girl? Did that knowledge carry over through all those faces or did bits get lost along the way?"

"I can assure you it all did carry over, and it's a guarantee that my Dad Skills are top-notch when it comes to the ones I call my own."

"You're still going to need a lot of help that the TARDIS can't give," she sighed. "Guess we're Mum and Dad now, aren't we?"

"It looks like it," he nodded. Clara approached him and wrapped her arms around his middle, enjoying the feel of the velvet of his jacket against her cheek.

"Not a man alive I'd want to go on this adventure with."

The Doctor stroked her hair and hugged back. "I know."

* * *

"Wucy not sweepy, Mummy! Wucy stay wake!" the toddler protested. She was jumping up and down on her bed (rocket-shaped, plastic, and _completely_ garish according to the Doctor), while Clara scanned the bookshelves checking to see what they were going to read that night.

"No, Lucy has to go to sleep, or else she's going to stay short like Mummy," she chuckled. Plucking a _Peter Rabbit_ anthology off the shelf, she perched on the edge of the bed and waited for Lucy to bounce to a stop and crawl under her bedspread. She clutched her stuffed owl and laid on her side, staring up at Clara with wide, brown eyes.

"Is it good stowwy?"

"It is an _excellent_ story."

After Lucy nearly made it all the way through _The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin_ , Clara placed the book back on its shelf and tucked her daughter in. She left the sleeping girl with a kiss on the forehead and a wish for pleasant dreams before departing for her own bedroom. The Doctor was already there waiting for her, down to a t-shirt scribbled with fabric marker especially for him and his pajamas. He was sitting in a chair at the table, scanning one of the many books Clara had laid out.

"Freshening up your teaching skills?" he asked, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. "I told you that the TARDIS has learning docks Lucy can use once she's old enough for a formal education—the ship _was_ designed to hold pilots and their families."

"I know, but if the news is correct and Earth is close to peace, I'd want to go back and raise Lucy where and when she belongs," she replied. Clara undressed and found her nightie, slipping it on without much care that there was another being in the room with her. "You'd stay with us if I wanted to do that, yeah?"

"Of course—Lucy is just as much my daughter as she is yours. I don't want to be an absentee father. It's too easy to miss things and become hated for it when you're an absentee parent."

"Good, because I'll have no problem supporting us and Lucy will finally have kids her age to play with." She slid between the bedsheets and settled in, getting comfortable while she turned in for the night.

"The TARDIS's holographic projectors are fine for the time being," was the reply from the other side of the room. Clara heard chair legs scraping against the wooden flooring and the soft padding of stockinged feet. Before long she held the Doctor in her arms, his back to her chest as he laid down for the night. When they'd first began travelling together full-time, Clara would sleep while the Doctor did other things around the ship. Soon after they'd adopted Lucy there was a spaceport pitstop that had nearly killed him, causing her to demand he stay with her at nearly all times. Sharing a bed was the remnant of the demand, something that helped their status as Mummy and Daddy rather nicely.

"Holograms are no replacement for another child of flesh and blood," she muttered into his hair. Pausing thoughtfully, she allowed her hand to trail up and down his chest until she could feel the goosebumps on the back of his neck. "I'd like to make Lucy an older sister, please. Would that be possible?"

"Very possible—I still have some genetic data from other humans I've traveled with, so if you'd rather not have a precise clone it is very much possible…"

"No… I meant: Mum wants to have another baby. How about it, Dad?" She chuckled as she watched him roll over, a myriad of shock and joy spread across his face.

"You really do…?" he wondered, touching her face with the barest of touches. She nodded, with tears of joy in her eyes, before pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss. They rolled so that he was on his back and she was taking control, reviving old muscle memory that had sat dormant since his regeneration.

Within a week Clara was pregnant and nine months afterward Lucy met her baby sister for the first time. The girl was elated to have someone to help take care of, and matured rapidly as many new older siblings are apt to do. It made her parents proud to see her play with the infant so carefully, making stuffed toys dance around and fumbling over the words in storybooks in an effort to share in her fun.

* * *

"Alright Nora, Lucy, get a move on and help me out," Clara requested. She watched as her daughters ran through the many trees that were nearby, giggling contently.

"But Mum! It's so much _fun_ here!" Lucy protested. The eight-year-old tripped over a root and tumbled into the red-grey grass, laughing gaily. "Aunt Idris's grasses don't feel like this!"

"That's because Aunt Idris grows the indoor park with simulated sunlight, not the natural sunlight these grasses get," Clara explained. She finished packing up the picnic remnants and stood, holding the basket. "Now: Lucy, you come take Davis, and Nora, get the blanket."

"Okay," the girls sighed. Lucy picked up their brother and put him on her shoulders, while Nora bunched up the blanket they'd picnicked on, and they followed their mother down the grassy slope to where the TARDIS was parked at the base of the hill. Purple mountains loomed in the distance, a quiet lake separating them from the tourists, and tables sat scattered about the rocky shoreline. The Doctor was there, conducting some form of experiment, though he stopped as soon as he saw his family approaching.

"There's my favorite little ones," he beamed, getting a hug and kiss from each child. "How was the picnic? Did you behave for Mam?"

"' _course we did_ , Dad!" Nora insisted. "The only one that was bad was Davis, and that's because he has tantrums still."

"Did you throw a fit again?" the Doctor asked his son, plucking him from his eldest daughter's shoulders. The toddler wiggled in an attempt to flee, knowing he was caught.

"No fit, no fit," he protested. His father put him down and watched as the siblings all went into the TARDIS together, Lucy taking in the basket from her mother instead of carrying Davis.

"They behaved as well as possible," Clara explained. She leaned into a kiss from her husband, smiling at him playfully. "Did you get work done like you wanted?"

"Yes—this is a very interesting planet," he replied. "I'll have to take a look at the yearly cycles, but I think this is definitely the place where I want to set up shop."

"It won't replace Earth, but our children will finally have a home," she grinned, exhaling heavily. She glanced up at the green-blue sky, nodding happily. "I can get used to this."

* * *

"Mum? Dad? Why don't I look like you?"

It was late at night and the tween stood in the doorway of the sitting room, still in her clothes for the day and looking rather sullen. The Doctor and Clara, sitting up going over some documents, had both known the question was one that had been a long time coming, but the fact that it was asked still broke all three of their hearts.

"Is there something _wrong_ with not resembling us?" the Doctor asked. He motioned for his daughter to sit down and silently offered her some tea. She took it, growing increasingly timid with each passing moment.

"Not really, but… I've wondered for a while now," she explained. "Nora looks like Mum, and Davis looks like you, and I don't look like _either_ of you. Why is that? Did you have me during a previous regeneration?"

"No," he frowned sadly. "We've raised you as our daughter, but you are not genetically linked with either of us."

"So, I'm adopted?"

"Jen and Rigsy, your genetic mum and dad, were killed during the Zygon Wars before you were even half a year old," Clara said gently, placing her hand on Lucy's shoulder. "We took you in because it's what they would have wanted, and it doesn't mean we love you more or less than Elenora and Davis, nor did we feel any sort of obligation concerning you. We made you our daughter because we wanted you as our daughter. Does that make sense?"

"I guess," she nodded. "That's the war that makes you not want to go back to Earth, right?"

"The very same," the Doctor agreed. "I don't want any of my children to grow up knowing war and fearing for their lives or next meal if I can help it."

"That's why we used to live in Auntie Idris, and why we now live here in the hill," Lucy concluded. The hobbit-hole the Doctor had carved out of the ground for them was to give the kids a steady home life in a non-expansive environment that contained bits and bobs that could potentially kill them if misused. She sipped her tea pensively, glad to be assured her place was there, but unsure about other things. "What did my birth parents look like?"

"Jen and Local Knowledge? Oh, we've got that taken care of," the Doctor scoffed in amusement. He stood and walked over to the wall, putting on his sonic spectacles. With a whirring noise, a piece of paneling swung open and he pulled an old tote out of the hidden cupboard. "Didn't want you to stumble on this before you were ready, after all."

The three sat for half the night, going through the tote contents and discovering the girl's heritage. By the time she went to bed, Lucy knew that her artistic abilities were genetic, that her birth mum was older than her birth dad by five years, and that she had blood in her veins that saved Earth. It wasn't all that bad, she decided. The people she called Mum and Dad hadn't changed, and in the morning her brother and sister would still fight with her over the breakfast cereal and they'd run outside to play like nothing was wrong; truly belonging was something she wouldn't trade for anything.

* * *

Skaro. Of all the places for Nora to crash-land on it had to be _Skaro_. She really did have their father's sense of direction. To make matters worse, when Lucy had come back from scavenging for spare machinery parts from other ships that had the misfortune to make Skaro the final stop, she found that her brother and sister were gone.

Taken, by the Daleks; she was going to make them pay.

Thank the sewage system that Davros was currently off-world, meaning that the security protocols were immensely lax for the headquarters of a race that thrived off of genocide and hatred. She blasted her way through the guards, bypassed security systems, and left a smoldering wake of destruction as she combed the citadel. Finally she found them, with Nora's leg in a splint and Davis's wispy beard half burnt off.

"You let my brother and sister go this instant!" Lucy snarled, aiming her phaser gun at the Daleks. All eyes and stalks were on her

"No, get out of here, get Mum and Dad! Save yourself!" Davis insisted. If their father knew what was going on, he would come for them in blaze of glory and destruction. The head Dalek scanned Lucy, analyzing her and cross-referencing its database.

"NEGATIVE," it declared. "YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THE FORETOLD HYBRIDS. DAVROS REQUESTED ELENORA DANIELLE OSWALD AND DAVIS HAMISH OSWALD TO BE HELD CAPTIVE UNTIL HIS RETURN. YOU ARE OF NO RELATION AND THEREFORE INSIGNIFICANT."

"Guess again, you oversized pepper pots!" she snapped back. "I am Lucille Jenna Oswald and you have my younger siblings! Prepare to be exterminated!"

The Daleks rechecked their records and began panicking, begging for mercy. Their father was the merciful one, she casually reminded them as she blew up their eye stalks and set fire to their squishy, globular innards. The great Dalek city was half-razed by the time Lucy and Davis helped Nora hobble out, back to the space ship their father had entrusted them with. Not an _entirely_ bad way to spend Davis's eighteenth birthday, but it was going to have to do.

* * *

Ohila, High Priestess of Karn, stared at Lucy critically. The young woman shifted in her seat, wondering what was going to happen.

"You came to us for a reason," she said. "You wish for something, do you not?"

"I would like to be able to return to my home planet," Lucy explained. "The Zygon Wars have been going on almost my entire life, and as long as they are taking place, I can't go back."

"You have a good life amongst the stars—do you really wish to give that up?"

"No; I want to see the country where I was born without fear. The Zygons that have been ravaging Earth are tougher and craftier than most. I want to visit, but I don't want to go against my parents' wishes and put myself at risk."

"You did not come to us by natural ways," Ohila noted. "I can help you, but it will put you back on the correct path."

"What do you mean?" Lucy wondered.

The high priestess poured out a bowl of shimmering liquid from a cauldron and placed it on the low table before her guest. "Drink this, and you will have peace on your homeworld."

"What's the catch?"

"You will be put back to the correct path," she replied. "It will involve some sacrifices; are you willing to make them?"

"Will I still have my family?" Lucy asked. She stared at the bowl's contents, wary. "I want to be able to walk down the street with my parents and siblings without being in danger."

Ohila paused, introspectively considering her answer. "You will have your family."

Picking up the bowl, Lucy hesitated as she brought the bowl to her lips. She then downed the liquid, finishing it in one go. A soft glow began to creep out from her jacket sleeves, gradually enveloping her. A sharp pain held in her gut and suddenly, there was nothing.

* * *

"Rigsy, she's _gorgeous_!" Clara gasped, fawning over the baby in the cot.

"She's better than that—she's brilliant," the Doctor added. He marveled over the infant, wondering how it was that Local Knowledge made something so precious. Well, he knew how, but he didn't want to think of it.

They were gone within a moment's time. No Zygon Wars, no Elenora and Davis; just a normal human family, loving and doting on her for all she was worth and more. Lucy went on to live the life she was meant to have while the Doctor and Clara, well, continued on their paths.


End file.
